Author: Kharatian Ani

Russia Urges Georgia to Withdraw Troops from Kodor Gorge

PanARMENIAN.Net
01.08.2006 15:34 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Sending troops to Kodor gorge by Georgia was a direct
violation of the Moscow agreement on cease-fire and separation of
forces of May 14, 1994. Under the coverage of "a police operation"
a large-scale military action is launched next to the Russian
borders. Tbilisi intends to preserve its military presence in Kodor
gorge, says a statement of the Russian MFA.

The document emphasizes that Russia agrees with Abkhazia’s opinion
that Georgian authorities’ actions in Kodor gorge and their plans
for the future can spur up a dangerous scenario for the developments.

"Russia calls to withdraw Georgian troops from Kodor gorge and
continue talks, which would form conditions for advancing on the way
of peaceful political settlement of the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict,"
the statement says.

730 ARMENIANS EVACUATED FROM LEBANON

Lragir.am
01 Aug 06

The acting press secretary of the Armenian foreign ministry Vladimir
Karapetyan reported that 730 people as of August 1 were evacuated from
Lebanon to Armenia in the result of the Isreal-Lebanese conflict. 54
people arrived in Armenia from Israel. About 40 percent of these people
are citizens of Armenia. Regnum informs that 60 people applied to the
Agency of Migration for temporary asylum. So far only 16 applications
have been met.

Arka News Agency, Armenia
July 28, 2006

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON EUROPEAN INTEGRATION TO BE HELD IN
YEREVAN

YEREVAN, July 28. /ARKA/. An international conference "European
integration: ways and methods of creation of peaceful neighborhood"
is to be held in Yerevan on July 28-29, 2006.
International Center for Human Development reports the goal of the
conference is presenting the European values and principles as
guarantees of security and cooperation, as well as the discussion of
the current situation and prospects of further cooperation.
Representatives of NGOs from Armenia, Bulgaria, Geoprgia, Moldova,
Russia, Romania, Ukraine and Turkey, as well as of the EU, NATO, OSCE
and CE, will take part in the conference.
The conference has been organized by the International Center for
Human Development in association with the European integration
organization and Armenian Center of Transatlantic Initiatives. The
conference will be held under the auspices of the European Commission
of Armenia. P.T. -0–

VLADIMIR KAZIMIROV: INCIDENTS AT CONTACT LINE GO ON AGGRAVATING
TENSION AND DISTRUST BETWEEN KARABAKH CONFLICT PARTIES

DeFacto Agency, Armenia
July 25, 2006

According to an agreement on strengthening cease-fire all the sides of
the Nagorno Karabakh conflict have undertaken permanent obligations
to quickly settle all incidents at the contact line, not to assume
their escalation and aggravation of tension. OSCE Minsk Group former
Russian Co-Chair Vladimir Kazimirov told PanARMENIAN.Net that the
parties had not fulfilled their obligations for a long time.

"Let’s suppose that the implementation of the agreement has uncovered
its shortcomings, it did not prove to be effective enough. However,
in such a case, if there is political will and the lives of the
servicemen and civilians living near the contact line is precious,
the parties would inform the mediators of the fact, put forward
proposals how to supplement the agreement, make it more useful.
However, the matter was reduced to holding of monitorings, which
are selective and cannot ensure either direct contacts between the
parties or ubiquitous supervision of the state of affairs at the
contact line. Meanwhile, the incidents that have already claimed
thousands of lives go on aggravating tension and distrust between
the parties," Kazimirov underscored. The Russian diplomat noted RA
DM Serge Sargsyan had publicly stated the readiness to return to
fulfillment of the obligations undertaken, if the Azeri party acted
the same way. Nagorno Karabakh joined the position and repeated it
in May 2006. "It is Baku that has kept silent for years. One wishes
to believe that the Azeri President’s utterances on the issue will
prompt to constructiveness. It seems that Baku’s negative approach was
conditioned by the unwillingness to maintain direct contacts with the
opposite parties’ servicemen, moreover with Nagorno Karabakh a party
to the agreement. Should one wrestle with the coordination of the
"principles" and preparation of agreements between the parties, if
they are the same way "accurate" in their implementation and display
the same political "will"? Today the Co-Chairs insist on displaying the
parties’ political will", the Russian diplomat remarked. To note, the
mediator’s proposals on strengthening ceasefire in the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict were sent by Vladimir Kazimirov to the RA and AR Presidents
Levon Ter – Petrosyan and Heydar Aliyev, as well as Nagorno Karabakh
Head Robert Kocharyan, on February 3, 1995. The parties’ consent was
received February 4, 1995 from all the conflict parties’ DMs.

KD Avia and Armavia sign inter-line agreement

SKRIN Market & Corporate News
July 25, 2006 Tuesday 3:01 PM GMT

KD Avia (former Kaliningradavia) and Armenian Armavia Arline have
signed a two-party agreement on acknowledging transport documentation
(inter-line agreement).

According to Avia.Ru, in the framework of a Special Prorate Agreement
(SPA) the passengers of both companies may take use of new special
tariffs on the routes between Kaliningrad and Erevan. Transportation
from Kaliningrad to Armenia will be possible by flights of both
Airlines through Moscow, St. Petersburg and Sochi.

Armenia Facing Dilemma On Karabakh – Paper

Armenian newspaper 168 Zham, Yerevan
20 Jul 06

Text of report by Armen Bagdasaryan in Armenian newspaper 168 Zham
on 20 July headlined "Who is time working for?"

Discussions are under way on the future of the Karabakh settlement.
Two days ago, the leader of the National Democratic Union, Vazgen
Manukyan, said that time is working for Karabakh. Manukyan said that
Karabakh, which has been running its own affairs for 15 years now,
will never agree to be part of Azerbaijan.

In this sense, time is really working for Karabakh. But only in this
sense. It would be wrong to say that time is working for us on the
whole. The point is that there has been almost no growth in Karabakh’s
population over the past 10 years. The liberated territories have
not been populated either.

These are very important issues for us. Nagornyy Karabakh’s economy
has grown. But Karabakh cannot be compared with Azerbaijan in this
sense. If we want to see a more or less realistic picture of the
situation, we should compare Azerbaijan with Armenia, not with
Karabakh.

The pace of Azerbaijan’s economic development is faster than
Armenia’s. From a political point of view, time has not been working
for us either. Karabakh participated in the talks 10 years ago,
but now it does not.

What do we have now? It turned out that neither the Armenian nor
Karabakh population has grown in the past 10 years, no country has
recognized Karabakh’s independence, and Karabakh has been sidelined
from the talks.

In view of all this, can we say that time is working for us?

The point is that such a position is not an assessment of the past,
but is a programme of future steps. In other words, if time has been
working for us up until now, why do we need to resolve the issue as
soon as possible?

Vazgen Manukyan is also in favour of finding a quick settlement to
the conflict.

Obviously, Manukyan’s views are contradictory. He is forced to say
that time is working for us. Otherwise, he will have to admit that
[former Armenian President] Levon Ter-Petrosyan was right in 1997.
But since he is well aware of the conflict, he understands that our
positions are weakening, which is why we need to resolve the conflict
as soon as possible.

Now a few words about the status quo. In fact, our society is confused,
as it thinks that the status quo has been preserved thanks to our
policies.

Why did the 12 years of talks not yield any results? That is because
Azerbaijan has ruled out any option under which Karabakh can secede
from Azerbaijan even in theory. This means that the status quo has
been preserved not as a result of our policy, but that of Azerbaijan.

In a nutshell, Azerbaijan is in favour of preserving the status quo
today. Its number one task is to get Karabakh back. This is possible
only in a military way, and they need time to prepare for war. They
are preparing for war, and are happy to preserve the status quo until
they end their preparations.

As for us, we have to wait for the Azerbaijanis to finish their
preparatory work.

In fact, our authorities and society are facing a dilemma: should
we allow Azerbaijan to preserve the status quo as long as they want
and to better prepare for war, or should we force Azerbaijan to take
a step without preparing well? We think that the authorities and
politicians should consider this issue from this point of view.

THERE WILL BE NO REVOLUTION IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

Lragir.am
21 July 06

The deputy leader of the Republican Party Tigran Torosyan believes
that after the July 22 extraordinary assembly of the Republican Party
nothing will happen to the party even if we take into account that
the post o the chair of the council of the party is restored.

According to Tigran Torosyan, the Republican has had an influential
role in the political processes of Armenia. And the Republican was
majority after two parliamentary elections.

There is an opinion in the media that not all the Republicans approve
the restoration of the chair of the president of the council and
naming of Serge Sargsyan. In this connection Tigran Torosyan notes,
"People who express opinions secretly and decline to specify their
source are not serious. Unfortunately, people often comment on the
political life in Armenia who are far from the reality and far from
being analysts. The internal life of the political party is the
problem of the political party. It is important for the society how
effectively the party serves the society. There will be no revolution
in the Republican Party."

Countering to the statements of Vazgen Manukyan and one or two other
figures that the growth of the Republican will lead to a unipartisan
system in Armenia, Tigran Torosyan notes, "One needs to have a
vivid imagination not to see the realities and make suppositions
on the unipartisan system. Fortunately, there is not such a threat
in Armenia."

BAZE IN ARTSAKH

Azat Artsakh, Nagorno Karabakh Republic [NKR]
19 July 2006

This year Baze 7th Pan-Armenian Youth festival will be held in
Artsakh. Baze in Artsakh Pan-Armenian Youth Foundation decided that
about 220 young people aged 18-30, including 100 viewers will take
part in the festival including song, dance, reciting, art, sculpture
contests, brain tests, as well as chess, table tennis, volleyball
and football tournaments, which will last from July 26 till August
1. The NKR Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport reported that 5
groups will participate in Baze from Artsakh, two groups from Armenia
and one group from Javakheti and Diaspora each. During the festival
round-table meetings will be organized. The participants will meet
with the NKR president, prime minister and other officials.

ZARINE MAYILIAN. 19-07-2006

Taiwanese Film Director Receives Golden Apricot Grand Prix

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.07.2006 17:57 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Taiwanese film director Hou Hsiao-Hsien received the
grand prix of the Golden Apricot Third International Film Festival
for "Three Times" film. "Legend of Time" by Spanish film director
Isaak Lokust and "Return to Armenia" by French film director Robert
Gudiguian shared the second place.

"Worker’s Death" shot by Austrian film director Michael Glavoger won
the award for best documentary. The second prize went to Brazilian
Markus Pradu ("Estamira") and Swedish Gunar Bergrdal ("Ludmila and
Anatoly").

The documentary "Residents of Forgotten Island" by Armenian film
director Hrant Hakobian received the first award in the Armenian
Panorama nomination.

Honorary guests of the festival – Armenian film director Artavazd
Peleshian, well known Italian film director Marco Bellocchio, Iranian
cinematographer Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, U.S. documentalist Godfrey Reggio
and outstanding screen writer Tonino Guerra -were handed Parajanov’s
awards for contribution to the development of world cinematography.

Azerbaijan Jeopardizes Karabakh Peaceful Process

PanARMENIAN.Net
17.07.2006 13:58 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ The wordings "both sides" and "two sides" that occur
in the Vienna statement of the OSCE Minsk Group arouse surprise. Three
sides in the Nagorno Karabakh conflict have been recognized in the
OSCE documents long ago," says the article PanARMENIAN.Net received
from former OSCE MG Russian Co-chair Vladimir Kazimirov.

The Russian diplomat reminded that the U.S. and France assumed the
role of mediators in early 1997, however Russia was a co-chair state
earlier and acted as an independent mediator. "Chairs and Co-chairs of
the OSCE Minsk Group used to change. A scope of settlement principles
was worked out long ago. The activities of the mediators base on the
maintenance of ceasefire achieved in 1994 with Russia’s mediation,"
he said.

Vladimir Kazimirov is convinced that the settlement should not
be started with the liberation of the seized territories. "The
Co-chairs mention the stability and guarantees of the peaceful
process in passing. Refusal of all the parties in the Nagorno
Karabakh conflict from any attempt to use force should become the
prior principle of settlement. It needs international authentication,
to all appearance by the U.N. Security Council," the article says. In
the opinion of the OSCE MG former Co-chair it’s mostly Azerbaijan who
jeopardizes the peaceful process at the background of failures in the
war. "It’s obvious. Militaristic statements, calls to armament race
and revenge, stirring up of hatred towards Armenians prove this. It
should also be noted that Baku rejected the mediator’s proposal very
often. Azerbaijan’s positions and arguments should be thoroughly
examined. Baku should be discouraged from the wish to settle the
matter by force and blood," Vladimir Kazimirov said.